Team Spirit
by WallofIllusion
Summary: Halle and Mello react to the vice president's announcement. Rated for swearing in the first chapter and... something else in the third.
1. Team Spirit

More Hallo from WallofIllusion.

I'm thinking about redoing my organization of DN fics, so if you're watching me and ff.n starts telling you that there are new stories which you have in fact read before, it's not its fault.

**Character(s):** Halle Lidner, Mello

**Setting:** right after page.75 (The vice president's announcement)

** Spoilers:** page.75

Pretend this is a magical pretty disclaimer because it's late again and I'm tired.**  
**

* * *

**Team Spirit**

Halle's spirits were decidedly low when she returned to her apartment on November eighteenth. To find Mello lying across her couch, his feet propped up on the side closer to her, and using his laptop, did not help. After a few impatient seconds of glaring pointedly at him, she snapped, "Do you think I could have some room to sit on my own couch?"

He swung his feet down casually and without remark, as if he hadn't just been ignoring her. Halle sat, crossed her arms, and stared blankly at the television. Mello had apparently been watching a news program, and of course the newscasters were discussing the vice president's announcement and public reaction to it. Halle groaned inwardly. _That_ surely wasn't going to improve her mood.

She listened to the newscasters babble on about how some people were doing this and a few countries were doing that until it made her sick; then she seized the remote and would have changed the channel, but Mello shot her a sharp glare. "I'm watching that," he informed her coldly.

"You're using your laptop," Halle countered, changing the channel in defiance.

"Multitasking." Mello glanced at the television. "And all the other channels are doing the same thing anyway."

He was right. Every channel seemed to be playing something to do with the vice president's announcement. And when she glanced at Mello's laptop screen, Halle saw that he was watching related videos from different countries and simultaneously browsing a few forums devoted to the same topic.

"Is there _any_ good news?" she asked him sullenly.

"_No_," he shot back. "Damn your president."

Halle sighed and leaned backwards. "How are the anti-Kira communities taking it?"

Mello fixed his eyes on her. "First tell me what the SPK's going to do," he commanded.

"No," Halle replied wearily. "I asked first and I'm not in the mood to be screwed with right now. Answer my question, and then I'll answer yours."

Impatiently, Mello rattled off, "Plenty of people are expressing displeasure and rage at the president, but it's all flaming and absolutely no one is doing anything useful. _Tell me what the SPK is doing._"

Halle breathed a discouraged sigh. "Near says we'll have to disband," she muttered reluctantly.

Mello's face instantly creased with a skeptical frown. "Disband?" His eyes narrowed dangerously. "Are you lying to me, Halle?"

"I wish." Halle's eyes narrowed also, but in worry rather than suspicion. "But I'm being completely honest. That's what Near said." The idea scared her. What was she supposed to do if the SPK disbanded? Sure, she could go after Kira on her own, but she wasn't a fool enough to think that she'd achieve anything like that.

"Disband…" Mello muttered to himself as he looked away, oblivious to Halle's worry. "There's no way Near would give up… What the hell's he thinking? Is he going to go on by himself?"

Halle's stomach clenched. She watched silently as Mello grabbed a chocolate bar from his pile on the coffee table and ripped open the wrapper, consuming it agitatedly.

"…If we disband, can I work with you?"

His eyes, wide and intense, clicked back onto hers immediately. She stared back without expression, waiting for his scornful insistence that she had no value to him if unconnected to the SPK.

"Why?" was what he said instead.

"Because—" Expecting a flat refusal, Halle stumbled a little over her answer, but quickly regained her certainty. "Because I want to catch Kira. We've been over this before."

"But you'd work with me to achieve that?" Mello asked, dubious and taunting. "My methods are of questionable legality—or worse."

"To hell with legality!" Halle cried, impassioned but deliberate. "If things keep going like this, any actions against Kira will be illegal anyway. Might as well get a head start."

Mello made a dismissive noise. "Find someone else to work with then," he said—but he did not look away, and Halle did not back down.

"I want to work with you," she stated.

"Why?" challenged Mello. "Surely it makes no difference to you, as long as Kira is caught."

"Just as surely, I mean nothing to you if I'm not connected to the SPK—to Near." She saw his lips tighten sullenly. "But I'm asking to work with you, and as far as I can tell, you're not turning me down."

Mello stared for a few more seconds, and then finally he returned his gaze to his laptop. "I'll think about it. If it becomes necessary."

Halle felt like thanking him but bit back the urge; there was no need to make it seem like a big deal. So she just stood. "Are you hungry for dinner?"

"Not really."

"……Yeah, me either."


	2. Stockholm

I really had no intention of continuing this but then I did. So you get to read more.

No, I don't own Death Note. A bunch of people do, but I'm not one of them. However I think I have a corner on the Hallo fanfiction market. (But it's hard to tell since I don't exactly read a lot of fanfiction...)

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**Stockholm**  
But she went over to the kitchen anyway, listlessly eying her cupboards. Finally her gaze settled on one. Over her shoulder, she asked, "Mello, how old are you?"

"Twenty-one," he enunciated knowingly. A lazy tone in his voice made her doubt his answer.

"Seriously?"

"Does it matter?"

Halle shrugged, decided it didn't, and got out two wine glasses. She brought them and a bottle of wine—cheap wine, yes, but it wasn't too bad—back over to the coffee table.  
"Thanks," he said casually. Halle was surprised at the gratitude, but didn't show it as she poured them each a glass.

"To the death of Kira," Mello proposed, raising the glass.

Halle's lips curved up in a bitter smile, and she revised the toast. "To the death of Kira… at _our_ hands."

Mello smirked too, and they clinked their glasses.

They drank for a while, silent in their thoughts. When it seemed that Mello was finished, Halle collected his glass and took it to the sink to wash it.

"Halle," he said, a minute or so later. She was still at the sink, and she didn't turn around.

"Hm?"

"Are you in love with me?"

"Huh?" Now she whipped around, nearly dropping the wine glass she held—and she found that Mello had followed her to the kitchen.

He stood a few feet from her, his arms crossed and his head tilted in comfortable arrogance. "Well?" he pressed in a voice that was quieter than before—he knew he had her attention.

But she merely snorted and put the glass down. "Where on earth would you get that idea?"

No—that was a stupid question. From the conversation they'd just had, obviously. From her request to work with him if everything didn't work out with Near. She realized the inanity of her response even before Mello shook his head reprovingly at her.

Then, without warning, he closed the gap between them with a single long stride, took her wrist in his hand, and brought his face very close to hers. "You haven't answered me yet," he pointed out, his breath soft against her face.

There was (for once) no threat in his manner; his face was a perfect parroting of intimacy—the right tilt of the head, the right drooping of the eyelids—but for the mocking air around his lips. And as they stood there, his face next to hers, the mocking smile grew clearer and he snorted.

"Your pulse," he said, giving her wrist a taunting, light squeeze before releasing it.

The flush Halle had managed to contain before now crept into her face.

Her pulse had sped up.

…He was so irritating.

And—even worse—he was completely right.

He stepped back, all pretense—for of course mere pretense it had been—of intimacy dropped. "Bad idea," he mocked. "That could make things quite inconvenient for you, you know. Not that I'm complaining."

He began to turn away, laughing to himself, and Halle watched him with narrowed eyes. Then, without thinking, she took_ his_ wrist and pulled him close, and she kissed him on the lips.

Mello made as if to push her away for a moment; then he didn't.

When they separated, Mello's face was sullenly blank, until he saw the victorious air in Halle's eyes.

"That meant nothing," he claimed with a light sneer.

Halle was not fooled. "You could have pulled away, easy," she pointed out. "You could have—and you _would have_—hurt me if you didn't want that."

"It's much easier to manipulate people if—"

"Mello." Halle shook her head with a smirk. "You _cannot_ manipulate me."

He considered it for a moment. "Hmph," he snorted softly, mocking something—and when his lips pressed onto hers again, Halle found she didn't really care what the something was.


	3. Regret

hai gaiz

**Title**: Regret  
**Fandom**: Death Note  
**Author**: WallofIllusion  
**Characters**: Halle x Mello  
**Warnings**: Implications of sex. (That's what it's rated for.)

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Before long they had forgotten who started what and were pulling each other towards the bed, abandoning articles of clothing as they went. Halle hesitated only once, when she came to Mello's rosary. Her eyes went from it to his face, questioning. In answer, he removed it himself and put it aside. This, Halle did not question. The temporary disregarding of ethics was no unusual concept for either of them.

Later, afterwards, Halle had almost drifted off to sleep when she felt Mello get out of bed.

"What?" she asked him. He had wrapped his coat around himself, stiffly, his shoulders hunched, and was watching the city lights through her filmy curtain. He didn't answer.

"What, Mello?" Halle sat up. He looked like he already regretted their passion, which made Halle's heart clench in indignation and shame. But she wished he would say something. She pulled a blanket around herself against the November chill and approached him.

"Halle," he said.

The warning in his voice made her stop. "What?" she said again, now impatient.

In a voice that tried too hard to be careless, he asked, "Do you trust me?"

"Yes." She didn't have to think to answer that. She'd known from the first time she saw him, despite her fear, that he was an ally: prickly, but not a threat. But he knew that, so why this question now?

"You shouldn't." He turned towards her, shoulders no longer hunched, eyes cold and impassive. "I don't have morals, Halle; I have an ordered list of priorities. You aren't high on it. You will never be high on it."

Halle drew close to him and touched his hair, coy. "No?"

"No," he answered, undistracted, almost distant. Halle could no longer tell whether his dark eyes were unfathomably deep or simply depthless. She stepped away, and she, too, turned her gaze out the window.

"Mello?"

"Yeah?"

"I trust you."

Mello shook his head slightly. "I'll betray you, Halle."

"I don't think you will."

They looked at each other. A painful smile twitched at Mello's lips: mocking again, but pitying and apologetic too. "Your funeral."

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Okay, NOW this fic is over.  
Though Melancholy (in "Notes") could conceivably be set the morning after.


End file.
